Quotes About Satire

Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.

People are always saying, 'You use irony,' and it's like, actually, we don't use irony: we use wit and playfulness and irreverence.

Wit is a comic's defense weapon.

I'd call it a new version of voodoo economics, but I'm afraid that would give witch doctors a bad name.

I always feel that most political jokes, if you're going to do them, you have to do them within the next five minutes, or else they're outdated. By the time you've got it to the point that it's strong, it would be 12 years old.

The 1928 Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it's been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking.

AJ' is a very special movie to me. I have been watching Dinesh and Rajkumar from their initial days, and have witnessed their evolution. The film talks about the bond shared between a father and a son who wants to fulfil his father's dreams. It's a cross between a comedy of errors and a political satire.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature.

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

You can't just be crass without being witty. Angry crass is horrible.

What's that one that people seem to like so much? 'Fleabag.' I watched that and it was that sort of Oxbridge 'Oh, I'm so clever and witty, aren't I?' I don't like that stuff. But then I don't like 'Mrs Brown's Boys' either. I like things that are clever but hide it.

If I were obliged to marry all those with whom I have jested, I should have at least two hundred wives.

Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and give her a house.

Women: You can't live with them, and you can't get them to dress up in a skimpy little Nazi costume and beat you with a warm squash or something.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

I love nothing better than a dirty cartoon. I think that it's really, really funny to see adult themes in a genre that's usually directed towards children.

Some of you may have been hoping that today I would speak about Lucien Bouchard's latest economic theories. But I have decided to spare him for the time being: after all, he is a man.

My theory is that comedy comes from little people.

I wrote an ITV drama in the 1960s, a satire on management theory that starred Leonard Rossiter. I'm also a poet and have had work in the 'Spectator.'

I never believe them when they say that because you really have to sort of be aware of what's going on in the news in order to get the jokes on the show.